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The Education Gadfly Show

Mike and Nina Rees take on the federal charter-school bill that passed in the House last week, what traditional public schools can learn from charters, and the pros and cons of KIPP’s character-education model. Amber wades into teacher-evaluation research. Amber's Research Minute Evaluating...

Michelle and Brickman are concerned about the rapid growth of online credit-recovery programs, New York City’s new teacher labor agreement, and the fact that Indiana’s voucher-participating private schools are quickly filling up. Amber gets down to the (gloomy) facts with the 2013 12th Grade NAEP...

Michelle and Dara may not be mean girls, but they do take a critical eye to funding disparities between charter and traditional public schools, higher-than-ever graduation rates, and whether it really is “teachers versus the public.” Amber wants us all to get along (and exhibit other noncognitive...

Mike and Victoria, our resident British-American, take Shakespeare’s birthday as an opportunity to discuss the place humanities has in K–12 education. They also tackle inBloom’s demise and the NCAA’s smack down of online-learning giant K12. Dara considers what happens when landmark education...

Dara and Brickman enthuse about early-talent identification programs, rue Indiana’s subpar state standards, and wonder how much is too much to pay superintendents. Amber finds little to no connection between a popular pre-K quality measure and pupil outcomes. Amber's Research Minute “ Do Standard...

Mike and Michelle discuss the “opt-out outrage,” good news from Kansas, and hope for the quagmire that is the United States Congress. Amber has the goods on exactly how generous public pension plans are. Amber's Research Minute Not So Modest: Pension Benefits for Full-Career State Government...

Mike and Dara explain the de Blasio–Cuomo deal, the difficulties of studying high flyers, and what it takes to be cool in school. Amber thinks the new PISA data on creative problem solving are just a touch too creative. Amber's Research Minute PISA 2012 Results: Creative Problem Solving by OECD, (...

Mike and Michelle acknowledge that school board members, for better and sometimes worse, affect student outcomes in their districts. But they don’t have to accept the misleading headlines on Indiana’s standards debacle (a case study in the hazards of politicization if there ever was one), nor must...

Mike and Brickman consider whether “college for all” is the right goal, whether a competitive assessment marketplace will be good for Common Core implementation in the long run, and whether Wyoming is better off without the Next Generation Science Standards. Amber drops a line about online learning...

Mike and Leo Casey of the Shanker Institute prepare to duke it out over New York’s charter school debate, education finance, and whether positive school trends mean reform is unnecessary—but end up with surprisingly similar conclusions. After studying the effects of birth order, Amber is surprised...

About the Education Gadfly Show

For more than eight years, the Fordham Institute has been hosting a weekly podcast, The Education Gadfly Show. Each week, you’ll get three lively, entertaining discussions of recent education news, usually featuring Fordham’s Mike Petrilli, with questions read by Ellen Alpaugh. Then the wise Amber Northernwill recap a recent research study.

Download the podcast using the link to the left or subscribe via iTunes.